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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Channeling Your Anger
Channeling Your Anger
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wolfkristiansen
57 posts
Oct 17, 2010
8:11 PM
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In the course of playing harmonica for over 30 years, I've occasionally stepped onto the stage seething with anger over something that was said or done to me that day or that very moment. I would seethe over some perceived unfairness in how I had been treated. As I think back, I realize it was always because of an argument with a female, be she girlfriend or wife.
Instead of distracting me, the emotion caused me to play better than I usually do. I know, because bandmates and audiences would tell me how well I played on those occasions, without knowing what I had been feeling.
It was such an obvious and reliable phenomenon, I did my best to analyze what was going on. Everybody wants to elevate their playing, after all. Here's what I came up with, years ago:
1. Any emotion, be it anger, love, joy or sadness will translate into better music, if your music (in my case, the blues) depends on emotion for its power.
2. Anger creates adrenalin, the same adrenalin that readied our prehistoric ancestors to fight or flee as they faced the sabre-toothed tiger. Your senses are heightened during those times; this is good for you as a performer.
3. Your playing, at times like these, is true to your real self.
For me, it's the third point that is far and away the biggest factor in how my playing changes for the better.
Terrible unresolved arguments with girlfriends always made me feel totally alone in the world. I didn't care who I pleased or displeased at that point.
During those angry moments, I played to satisfy MY needs, not the needs of my bandmates; nor the needs of the audience. I focussed on my need to "work it out", there and then. I didn't care who was watching or listening, or whether I pleased them or not. I lost my stage fright, indeed, any kind of self-consciousness.
Ironically, in selfishly pleasing myself, I would end up pleasing my bandmates and the audience. I would stand on the lip of the stage, with my eyes closed, baring my soul. My bandmates were happy to have a true center for the audience's focus, and would fall in line to support whatever magical thing was happening. The music that emerged was better, tighter and more powerful than anybody expected.
What it taught me, more than anything else, is that you should always try to be true to yourself as a musician; as an artist. This is the rule for me, although I appreciate for others their first focus is to entertain the audience. I say, if you please yourself, you will please the audience.
(This is a post I made in Harp-L in May, 2007. I hope its repeat here provokes some thought. I always felt I should apologise for talking about blues harp in Harp-L, since that group is for the wider harp community, including blues, jazz, classical, folk, pop, Irish, country and rock players. I feel more comfortable posting it here.)
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
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shanester
269 posts
Oct 17, 2010
9:34 PM
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Amen Wolf!
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Shane
1shanester
"Keep it coming now, keep it coming now,
Don't stop it no don't stop it no no don't stop it no don't stop it no no..."
- KC and the Sunshine Band
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mr_so&so
365 posts
Oct 18, 2010
9:36 AM
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I'll have a go at this one.
I agree with the premise that tapping into your authentic state of being and emotional state will enhance your music.
However, what Wolf has described is perhaps only an entry point that process. I.e., feeling a strong emotion helped him to connect to himself and to be open to expressing whatever (musical) images arose for him at the time.
This process of "dropping in to the zone" of expression, I believe, can be learned and does not necessarily need a strong emotional trigger. It does require cultivation of attentiveness to and being with whatever "images" arrive and expressing them through the harmonica.
@Wolf, I think there may also have been more than just pleasing yourself going on. You were aware of your other band members and were working with them, as they were with you. You may have been leading the music making more, perhaps, but you were all working well together, and each was contributing to the overall musical expression.
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nacoran
3016 posts
Oct 18, 2010
2:06 PM
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That's so much more productive than just mooning the audience!
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Nate
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harmonicanick
945 posts
Oct 18, 2010
2:37 PM
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@nacoran
nate, as a moderator you should be ashamed of that flippant response:)
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kudzurunner
1945 posts
Oct 18, 2010
2:51 PM
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Great post, Wolf, and certainly one worth re-posting here. Thanks for sharing (and clarifying) all that stuff.
I do think that blues performers, as they age or simply as they put in decades of playing/performing, probably lose the edge you're talking about. Charlie Musselwhite, for example, seems like too nice a guy--and too happily married!--to throw his rage into his playing these days. But I suspect that any blues performer who ever got good at what he does knows exactly what you're talking about, and had a period of time, perhaps in his youth, when his creative output was shaped by a regular encounter with rage and pain. Certainly mine was.
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OzarkRich
270 posts
Oct 18, 2010
3:28 PM
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That's probably why I do my best playing with gospel music; it's as much a worship experience, with all the associated emotions, as it is a musical performance.
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Ozark Rich
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barbequebob
1356 posts
Oct 18, 2010
3:44 PM
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I remember being backstage with Muddy Waters at Paul`s Mall/Jazz Workshop when a fan asked him, "Now that you`re doing well, how can you be able to sing the blues?" His answer was, "I got a LOOOONG goddamned memory!"
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Sincerely,
Barbeque Bob Maglinte
Boston, MA
http://www.barbequebob.com
CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
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